Moscow bar employee sentenced to 3 years in prison over hookah-on-Easter-cake video

A Moscow court sentenced bar employee Ksenia Belousova to three years and 25 days in a penal colony for 'insulting the feelings of believers'. She was taken into custody immediately in the courtroom after the verdict.

A Moscow court has handed down a prison sentence to Ksenia Belousova, an employee of a Moscow bar, following her conviction on charges of insulting the religious feelings of believers. The verdict — three years and 25 days in a penal colony — was delivered in a Moscow courtroom, where she was immediately taken into custody.

The case stems from a video Belousova published showing a hookah placed on top of a traditional Russian Easter bread known as a kulich. Russian authorities treated the act as a deliberate insult to Orthodox Christian believers, a charge that carries increasingly severe penalties under Russian law.

The verdict was reported by independent Russian outlets Mediazona and Ostorozhno Novosti. Belousova's sentencing is part of a broader trend in Russia of prosecuting citizens under the country's law protecting religious sentiments, a statute that critics say is routinely used to stifle freedom of expression and punish those deemed disrespectful of Orthodox Christianity or state-backed values.